ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the effect of early nutritional support on the growth and immature retinal vessels of very low birth infants.Methods Total 360 infants, admitted to our hospital from January 2003 to December 2013, who were born with birth weight lower than 1500g, without congenital malformation, being hospitalized for at least two weeks and safely discharged, were recruited.They were divided into 2 groups according to their time of hospitalization.200 infants ad-mitted from January 2010 to December 2013 were involved as group A and were given amino acid [ initial dose 1.6g/( kg· d), increased at 1.0 g/(kg· d)]in 12 h after birth and fat emulsion [initial dose 1.0 g/(kg· d), increased at 1.0 g/(kg · d) ] in 24 h after birth.168 infants admitted from January 2003 to December 2009 were involved as group B and were giv-en amino acid [initial dose 0.5 g/(kg· d), increased at 0.5 g/(Kg· d)] in 12~24 h after birth and fat emulsion [initial dose 0.5 g/(kg.d), increased at 0.5 g/(kg· d)] in 24h after birth.General condition at birth, enteral and parenteral nu-trition intake, growth parameters, retinal vessels development and other complications between two groups were retrospectively compared.Results No statistically significant differences(p>0.05) were found in gestational age, gender, general condi-tions at birth, faster time, average growth rate of Length and heat circumference, occurrences of complications, such as re-spiratory distress syndrome (RDS), necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage(PVH -IVH), parenteral nutrition associated cholestasis, infection, and the duration of oxygen therapy and mechanical ventilation between the groups.Group A compared to Group B, had less weight decrease [(6.12 ±1.15) vs (8.85 ±2.35)%, p =0.032]) ] and less time to regain birth weight [(9.0 ±3.5 ) vs (12.5 ±4.5) d ]and to reach 120 kCal/(Kg· d)[(10.02 ±4.99) vs (14.79 ±6.04) d,p=0.029)], had higher average weight growth rate after regain birth weight[(20 ±5.2 ) vs (14.1 ±4.6) g/(Kg· d)], had shorter hospital stay[( 30.9 ±10.5 ) vs ( 40.5 ±13.5) d ] and lower rate of immature retina at gestational age 34 weeks and retinopathy of prematurity(ROP).These comparisons were all statistically significance ( p<0.05 ) .Conclusion Early nutritional support can improve the growth velocity and visual function of very low birth weight infants, and reduce the incidence of immature retina at gestational age 34 weeks and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), shorten hospital stays, and had no influence on the occurrences of other complication.